


Influenza

by hutchabelle



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7968727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hutchabelle/pseuds/hutchabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss Everdeen is a nurse in Brooklyn during the Spanish Influenza epidemic during World War I. Her favorite patient is a blonde, blue-eyed soldier from Scranton, PA, named Peeta Mellark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter was written for d12drabbles, prompt 7--Time-twister.

“What’s wrong with this one?” Dr. Abernathy snapped as he inserted a catheter into a patient and nodded his head toward the blonde man lying on the cot to his right.

 

“Fever. Delirium,” the young nurse answered, her voice harried as she pressed cold compresses to the man’s brow. He was young, close to her age, she assumed, which was the problem. She’d seen her fill of teenage boys returning from the war with wounds too gruesome to imagine. The rest of them had contracted the influenza virus that ravaged Europe and was wreaking havoc in the U.S. as well.

 

“Influenza, then,” the doctor proclaimed in a snap diagnosis. “You can tend to him, Nurse Everdeen. You know the drill.”

 

She nodded and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She knew how the illness worked all too well, having lost her sister to it just a few months before. After Prim’s death, she’d thrown herself into her work as a volunteer in the nursing corps in Brooklyn. Wounded and sick soldiers from the front lines in France filled the hospital where she worked. The sights she saw every day were gruesome, but her work was better than staring at the walls of the dingy apartment she’d lived in with her mother and younger sister since their dad had died during her childhood.

 

Dr. Abernathy moved down the row, and Katniss leaned over her patient to swipe cold water over his forehead and cracked lips. His eyes fluttered briefly at the feel of the fluid against his face, and she gasped at the brilliant blue stare that settled on her for the briefest of seconds before his eyes closed again.

 

Katniss swept back the riotous blonde curls that fell over his forehead and reached down to pull his dog tags from underneath his shirt. Heat flushed her face when her fingertips trailed along the muscles in his chest before they grasped the metal with his identification imprinted on it.

 

“Peeta Mellark, Private, Scranton, PA,” Katniss murmured as she traced across the words with her index finger. “Well, Private Mellark, let’s see what we can do about getting you better and back home with your family. I’ll be back to give you a bath later. Until then, sleep well. It’ll help you get better.”

 

Katniss moved down the row of patients. She changed bandages and administered medicines. She wiped sweaty foreheads and hummed a few melodies to those who needed comfort. Eventually she worked her way back to the blonde man she’d treated earlier.

 

“It’s good to see you awake, soldier. How are you feeling?”

 

He coughed and groaned as his chest constricted. Swallowing hard, he croaked, “I feel awful.”

 

“You need to drink some water. Can you sit up?”

 

When he shook his head, she cradled his head in the crook of her elbow and lifted a cup of water to his lips. He sucked greedily from the copper cup before slumping back onto the bed.

 

“What’s wrong with me? Why am I so weak?”

 

“You have the Spanish flu. You seem to be one of the lucky ones. I think you’re going to make it.” She smiled at him gently.

 

“Don’t sugar coat it for me,” he joked before falling into another coughing fit.

 

She considered him for a moment—the blonde curls, the pale skin, azure eyes that would probably spark with mischief if he felt better. “I don’t think there’s a point in lying to you when millions of people have died. It’s a wonder anyone can fight this war at all when men are dropping like flies in the trenches. At least you made it home.”

 

He quirked his mouth at her and drawled, “Your bedside manner is exquisite. You’re a regular Florence Nightingale.”

 

“You think so?” she teased as she sponged his shoulders clean. Water glistened on his skin, and she wondered what it would look like when his bicep flexed.

 

“No, let me take that back. Mocking patients doesn’t seem like something a nurse would do. Maybe you’re a mockingbird instead.”

 

“A mocking… Hey! Just a minute, sir.”

 

“A mockingjay? Sure, that too.”

 

She snapped her mouth shut and refused to answer him. The gall of him to say something like that to her when she was nursing him back to health! Throwing the sponge into the bucket of soapy water, she stood and gathered herself before stalking away, her back ramrod straight.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mockingjay. Maybe you’ll sing to me next time.”

 

“Don’t count on it,” she tossed over her shoulder, but she couldn’t stop the grin that spread across her face.

 

There was something special about Private Peeta Mellark from Scranton, PA.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written for d12drabbles, prompt 12--The Eavesdropper.

The buzzing woke him, but it was pain that kept him from dozing off again. His leg throbbed, and Peeta groaned softly and shifted on the narrow cot. He bent his leg at the knee, sighing in relief when blood rushed to his toes and eased his agony slightly.

 

Disoriented, he glanced around and tried to make sense of his surroundings. Doctors and nurses bustled between rows of beds, each of which held patients covered in crisp white sheets. Thin blue blankets with white stripes rested at the foot of every cot. He caught a glimpse of a thin young woman with a dark braid and a serious expression on her face and suddenly remembered. He was in a hospital in an Army hospital in Brooklyn with the Spanish flu.

 

The buzzing grew louder, and he concentrated on it. It took a few minutes to comprehend what the noise was, but he finally realized that members of the medical staff were conferring somewhere out of his range of sight. The heated discussion continued in frantic mumbles and hissed retorts, and he struggled to understand the content.

 

“He seems to be recovered enough to handle the surgery now. I don’t think we can delay it much longer.”

 

“I disagree, Dr. Abernathy. Give him a few more days. The infection doesn’t appear to be worsening, and we might be able to save his leg in the long run.”

 

“With all due respect, Dr. Crane—”

 

“Somehow I highly doubt there’s any respect between us, Abernathy. Don’t insult my intelligence by patronizing me.”

 

Peeta heard a harsh laugh followed by, “I don’t think there’s much intelligence for me to insult, Seneca. The kid clearly needs a fighting shot, and the only way we can do that is to take his leg just below the knee.”

 

“Dr. Abernathy, please!” a female voice implored over the sound of a scuffle. “Please, sir! We’ve got to do what’s best for the patient. Private Mellark seems to be on the mend from the flu, but the infection in his leg is worsening. I saw the first signs of blood poisoning this morning. We can’t wait any longer.”

 

Peeta clamped his eyes shut, too terrified to do or say anything. His left leg felt like it was on fire, but the thought of losing it made him so nauseous he reached for his bedpan and retched into it. Fighting to keep his stomach under control, he gave into the hot tears that stung his eyes and streaked down his cheeks. He no longer listened to the discussion behind him. Nurse Everdeen, the silver eyed beauty he’d nicknamed the Mockingjay, had tended him through the flu only to encourage crippling him with an amputation. His cerulean blue eyes shone with moisture when she appeared in front of him. A soft smile graced her face, but it flickered and melted into a thin line of concern when she saw his expression.

 

“Private Mellark? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” He turned his head from her and refused to answer, but she moved quickly around the bed to stare him in the eye. “Peeta,” she said before realizing what she’d done. “I-I mean Private Mellark. Tell me what I can do to help.”

 

“Don’t touch me,” he spat as her hand rested gently on his forehead. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he fought to control a sob that threatened to rip from his chest.

 

Katniss jerked her hand back and glanced down at his leg. Realization dawned on her face, and she dropped onto a stool next to his bed.

 

“Private Mellark… Peeta,” she insisted, “you have the beginnings of blood poisoning. We can’t wait any longer and hope that you’re going to be able to fight off the infection as well as the flu. Even the strongest of men can’t overcome everything. We have to give you a chance.”

 

“A chance to do what?” he snarled, his eyes blazing with anger. “A chance to be helpless for the rest of my life? To be a burden to any woman stupid enough to marry me? To not be able to provide for a family? To be someone my parents pity? What is it you’re saving me for, Mockingjay? For your own self-righteous benefit?”

 

She couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d slapped her across her face with his hand instead of his words. Her steady gaze faltered, and her lips trembled as she attempted to gather herself.

 

“S-so you’ll live,” she stammered. “I want to save you because the world is a better place with you in it. You’ve earned the right to _live_.”

 

“It won’t be living. It’ll be as if I’m someone else.”

 

“Peeta,” she pled, “please see reason.”

 

“Leave me alone, Nurse Everdeen,” he growled. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

 

With a sob, she fled from him, leaving him alone with a sickening pool of dread deep in his gut and an anguish in his heart to match the pain in his leg. He wasn’t sure what hurt more—the knowledge that he’d soon be without a limb or that he’d never have a chance with the silver eyed nurse who deserved better than a man scarred and broken by war.


End file.
